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SUMMARY:Operationalising archaeological taxonomies using cultural evolutio
 nary approaches – and why it matters  - Professor Felix Riede\, Aarhus U
 niversity
DTSTART:20231109T160000Z
DTEND:20231109T173000Z
UID:TALK205021@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Simon Carrignon
DESCRIPTION:Like it or not\, classification is a key component of archaeol
 ogical research. For most archaeologists working with artefacts\, typology
  is unquestionably the means by which such classification is conducted. Ty
 pology\, however\, is critically flawed epistemologically\, although it ir
 onically often works in practice. In my seminar\, I seek to explain this s
 eemingly paradoxical situation through a brief historical analysis of how 
 typology has developed as a method. Against this background\, I will then 
 argue that cultural evolutionary theory\, with its focus on the social tra
 nsmission of learned information and know-how provides a useful conceptual
  foundation for more robust classification practices. Drawing primarily on
  our case study work focused on the Final Palaeolithic in Europe\, I show 
 how collaborative scientific practice and computational methods can powerf
 ully enable novel classification approaches and how evolutionary archaeolo
 gical taxonomies may thus be operationalised. In doing so\, I also argue f
 or the importance of theoretically as well as empirically rich and defensi
 ble archaeological taxonomies in interdisciplinary research on contemporar
 y topics such as population genomics and migration\, and in the context of
  open and reproducible scientific practice. 
LOCATION:McDonald Institute Seminar Room
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